The Rest of the Story

A week from today I will see my primary physician for an annual appointment - the mandatory one.  Today I wrote down a list of all the medically pertinent physical things that have changed in the past year:

1. Certain metatarsal bones in my feet are spreading apart in a dysfunctional way (according to the podiatrist).
2. Tinnitus is louder; hearing loss is worse and profoundly debilitating (according to the audiologist).
3. Cataracts are forming in my eyes, and for a few weeks I had lightning-like flashes in my right eye defined as “an aging process when pieces of retina flake off” (according to the optometrist).
4. I have arthritis and probably also bursitis (according to my joints, professional diagnosticians in their own right). 

After reading this rather sobering list I thought, Wow, that’s a lot of new stuff - but there’s more to the story!  I might be numb with loss if physical breakdowns were the primary way of measuring wellbeing.  Yes, I AM aging, but am NOT despairing.  “For with me is the fountain of life.” (Ps. 36:9)

The Psalmist alludes to baptismal waters.  His hopeful fountain is one promoting recovery.  Although human likeness to God was corrupted at the time of the Fall, that likeness is recoverable.  The Almighty Father wants to heal us in this way, to restore us at the core.  This begins now and continues tomorrow, always and forever.

I’m learning as the functions of the physical body decline, it is possible for a deep restoration process to accelerate through training and restraining the “nous” or perceptive power of the soul. This is an ascetic (chaste) struggle, a process of refocusing away from savage desire, stubborn willfulness, and sensory clamor (and the wounds they inflict), and repenting of disordered longings. 

This is a time in life to stop and listen, to experience God with keener awareness. He is indeed “everywhere present and filling all things.” It is a time to start over, in the sense of prioritizing humility before Him.  He is my dynamis  (Greek for power source, like dynamite) and my energia  (like an explosion that levels practiced delusions). It is a time to redefine justice as a relationship of harmony and peaceful unity between God and all of His Creation.  It is a time to bear good fruit (Mt. 7:17-18) from a healing heart.

God is more than all of my preconceived notions of Him (for example, God is good and infinite; God is love and light).  He is beyond rational understanding. He is in me and my surroundings, my circumstances and my infirmities.  As during the exodus from Egypt, He still rains down manna for His people and makes springs of water flow from the rock.  He is the wellspring, the fountain of life.